


Just In Casa

by Tribs



Series: No Longer in Progress Series Parts [9]
Category: Invisible Sun (Roleplaying Game), The Strange (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Adult Language, Alcohol, Gay Bottom/Lesbian Top Solidarity, Gen, Suitcase House, Swearing, Weed Plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tribs/pseuds/Tribs
Summary: Satyrine. The Fade district. 7:21 am.Pict's house is returned to him from storage.He sets about taking inventory.





	1. Pict

It was morning when I finally left Zero’s, stiff-legged and full with more than just the three kinds of whiskey I’d wriggled my way into getting. The address slip Jo’d left had gotten wrinkled, but I’d managed not to lose it through everything.

I popped out on a street that smelled strongly of dead fish and old coins, where the roads were less _that _and more _canals._ Some part of me identified that it was because the water - _ was it water? _ \- in the Sea of Abstraction had spent the last several millennia eating at the city from the top down, and this part was built on the crumbs of it.

_ Christ - ‘Deus. Fuck all of these city planners. _

A stand at the cusp of where the street gave way offered a schedule for some kind of floating taxi.

_ One just left. Back in an hour. Not sitting around for that. _

I checked the address scrap, then picked a good-sized townhouse to the right, its porch tucked neatly in against the water. A flowering trellis halfway up the side served as an impromptu ladder - I was light enough for it - and I scaled the rest of the way with the help of a window sill and some unevenly jutting bricks.

The roof was crusted with flakes of salt, probably from some bizarre rain or fog that had passed through. I picked my way up to the peak of it, then with a brief jog down hopped across to the next place over.

I carried along for a good stretch of time, feet unbothered by the pace from practice they remembered better than I did.

Jo’s place stood wedged between two similar townhomes, and I would’ve missed it if it wasn’t for the fringed ‘Back From the Dead Red’ flag strung from a slanted pole over the porch. 

It wasn’t on the address slip, but it felt familiar, and trusting that feeling hadn’t wronged me so far. Scaling down to the railing and checking the mailbox numbers proved it again. 

The door flew back when I went to knock, and I was pinned in a crushing hug. 

“AY, TICK!”

I wheezed out something close to Jo’s name then was swept inside, bundled down an entry hall into a comfortable kitchen, and given a stout mug of coffee.

“Took the liberty ‘n made some up ‘fore you got here. Only damn bottom I know drinkin’ that bitter shit plain.”

I clinked it against her own offered mug. “Only damn top I know that drinks this shit thick with syrup.”

“‘N y’know a lotta tops.”

“Mhm.”

She snorted.

“C’mon now, got breakfast left over for ye too. Katrine’s out bustin’ kneecaps now. ‘Fraid she had some’a your bit before I could stop her off it. But y’never ate much anyways.”

“I’m full.”

She shot me a look, then took me by the shoulder and pulled me to the bar-counter. “Spunk ‘n cigarettes ain’t a meal. Eat the fucken biscuits.”

I grumbled, sizing up how well I could argue out of it, before sitting and stuffing half of one into my face. She nodded once, a flicker of amusement flashing out from behind the stern act.

“Eggs in that bowl there, too. Sit, I’ll be back in a tick with yer damn case.”

She vanished back down the main hall, and I listened to her boots tromp up the stairs, then the clatter of the attic ladder falling, with her footsteps growing ever more distant. 

_ Eggs. More like damn sandpaper. Neither of you can cook these. _

I dunked them in the coffee, tried them that way, and decided covertly scraping them into the trash was better for everyone involved. Ollie - I still wasn’t used to the way he just _ appeared _ \- busied himself investigating the can, before recoiling and hopping up to the counter, turning his attention to the butter dish. 

Jo’s return was eventually announced by a resounding crash from above, the clatter of a ladder retracting, and her boots stamping back down the stairs. 

“Dropped it,” she explained in a strained voice, before doing it again.

The case writhed as best as the rigid material it was made of allowed, one of its old wheels creaking as it flipped upright and teetered over to my stool. The handle shot up, sending another wobble through it, before it fell still.

“Bastard thing,” she muttered, biting into the biscuit I’d left abandoned. “You and that damn cat - heyo Ollie - and this thing _ here. _ Cantankerous, all you.”

“Yep.”

She laughed, then coughed on the breadcrumbs. 

I waited until she was done and recovered before nudging the case with my shoe. It rattled as the zipper traced itself and the cover popped open, unfolding into a crooked doorway. 

“Coming?”

She toed the doorway like I’d done. “If the damn thing’ll let me. Hasn’t once since I’ve been back.”

I snorted and stepped through, Jo pressing in close behind. The dim lighting registered immediately - gentle on my headache - followed by the layer of dust caked on top of the floor and furniture, scored by tiny nails.

Loose items littered the cramped shelves and dresser table packed into the short hallway, snared and caressed by the cannabis plants that had emerged from a side room and taken hold of the place. I plucked a few bitter leaves and bit in.

Jo gagged behind me. “Forgot the damn- _ ya don’t eat weed plain.” _

I had a few more, just to watch her squirm - _ “Nasty, ya fucken tick.” _ \- before we prodded the stalks off their perches and pushed them back into the side glassroom. A quick glance in proved it was just as much of a mess in there.

Scrabbling rustled from underneath the foliage, and the tattoo inked on my shoulder prickled. I crouched, pushing the leaves back, and got bitten for my effort.

_ “Ce pula mea-” _

“What?”

“It’s- What? Nothing. Fucker bit me.”

She used her boot to push the plants back this time, which the tiny bastard had a harder time biting through. They looked a bit like a gargoyle, made of blotched leather-skin patched with fur, mangled wings and long, sinewy arms.

I snatched up the imp by the scruff, wrung them senseless, then held them at eye level. “If you’re in there eating all my damn weed while I’m gone, least fucking thing you can do is keep the place clean.”

They hissed, struggling like an agitated cat, and I tossed them back before standing and shutting the door to the garden room.

“Dealin’ with them later?”

“Yep.”

We pushed a toppled cabinet up from where it’d blocked the way and passed into the actual flat of the place. 

For the most part, it was just an open room. A bathroom stood closeted off in the corner, cutting a chunk out of the otherwise square layout. The side of it closer to the hall housed the kitchenette, then angled off at a diagonal, and squared off again at the corner where the bed was crammed. 

A thick rug covered half of the wood-slat floor in the main room, while the walls were decked with posters, pictures, strung up scraps of paper, and a handful of hanging knicknacks. A grandfather clock leaned in the corner in front of us, supporting strung lights that ran across and down from several old box speakers.

Two cluttered desks stood on either side of a circular window on the far wall - one that looked out on a pre-rendered Satyrine evening - an overstuffed armchair toppled on its side in front of one of them.

Another set of speakers framed the wide shelves next to the head of the bed, loaded down with books, cassette tapes, and boxes - one stolen from a shop display, touting _ 50% OFF All Wands, _ full of a different type of wand than originally intended. A statuette of an arm sat among them, upright and outstretched, covered in winding runic scrawl. It was clearly, at one point, meant to be six-fingered, but one had been snapped off. I flexed my own remaining fingers out of impulse. 

“Hard to tell what’s fallin’ apart and what’s just yer messiness,” Jo pointed out. “But looks kinda like shit got rifled through.”

I shrugged, snapping to wring the dust off the contents of a standing rack. “Probably just the imps.”

“Aye. Nestin’ material.”

“Mhm.”

I pulled the coat off and tugged it on, smoothing out the muted red fabric crossed with subdued circular patterns. It felt nice. Comfortable, familiar, right.

_ Carpet with sleeves. _

I tugged the tophat down next, and smoothed the rim out.


	2. Pict

_“You’re in debt and there are people with knives after you and that _ ** _terrifies me._ ** _ I’m terrified of getting wrapped up in whatever world you’ve gotten yourself into.”_

_“I would stay if you were the one-”_

_“And I’m not you, Pict.”_

* * *

The place was easier to clean out than my Earth-familiar head had prepared for, but wrangling the collection of imps back into the terms of whatever old contract we’d had easily filled in the rest of the allotted time. 

Jo had left to meet up with Kat once we finished, and that left me on the streets until dinner. We were going to meet at some restaurant or another.

I’d naturally gone to find a bar until then. 

The spurt of memory hadn’t been a settling one, and something in my head screamed to forget it again as soon as possible. My plan was to drink, then to sleep like I was dead until evening hit.

I sat perched on my case at the bar, the whole place hung like a flowering suspension bridge over one of the Fade’s roads, and rolled some orbs across the counter. Coughing up copies of Romanian words was working for me so far, but I didn’t know how long that would carry me. Or if there was any sort of currency regulation. Or if any of that mattered as much as it did on Earth. Maybe I was thinking about it all too hard.

I managed to at least get a bottle down before something interrupted me. 

“Vaughan?”

_What._ I grunted, chugging down the start of the second bottle like it would make them go away.

It didn’t. They stepped between the stool next to me and the one past that, palms flat against the counter and posture too formal to be anyone I was on good terms with. 

“You are, then. I would like to hire you to find someone.”

_Hell of an opener. _“I’m not a damn private eye.”

Their face creased, but they kept on. “No, but you are a _finder.”_

“No.”

“I’ve been informed about you by reliable sources, don’t play ignorant. You’ve done work for one of my associates. Crude work, but apparently useful.”

_‘Deus._ “I just got back.”

“Well, welcome back, from wherever you were. Here’s my contact card.”

“I never said yes to whatever this is.”

“Do shut up. Now, about this person I need you to find-”


End file.
